A Metrical History of England Or, Recollections, in Rhyme, Of some of the most prominent Features in our National Chronology, from the Landing of Julius Caesar to the Commencement of the Regency, in 1812. In Two Volumes ... By Thomas Dibdin |
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 | A Metrical History of England |  |
Shakespeare.
“They hate to mingle in the filthy fray,
“Where the soul sours, and gradual rancour grows
“Imbittered more from peevish day to day.”
Thomson.
“Doom'd for his grandsire's guilt, poor Henry falls
“In civil jars, avenging judgment blows
“And royal wrongs, entail a people's woes;
“Henry unversed in wiles, more good than great,
“Drew on by meekness his disastrous fate.”
Savage.
Shakespeare.
Lee.
HENRY VI. surnamed OF WINDSOR.
Whose baby sceptre ruled a brace of thrones;
At Westminster and Paris, crown'd in both,
His subjects take the customary oath.
Sits loose, his English sceptre beaten down
By party and rebellious civil war,
He proves the splendor of a falling star!
During the infant Sovereign's tender years;
Bedford in France not destin'd long to stay,
In Henry's name supports the English sway.
The Dauphin, (who when meaning to be merry,
The English styled “the little King of Berry,”)
Still of his birthright kept encreasing hold,
Nor let his, surely just, pretence take cold.
And now to help him with most wond'rous aid,
From fields obscure, darts forth a village maid;
A shepherdess—her story you may mark,
Told wond'rously in “Southey's Joan of Arc;”
So well indeed—the Imp of Envy fetch it!
That I'm afraid in outline but to sketch it.
Has an historian now, who cannot write;
She's to be pitied, but unless I err,
The loss is more to me, than 'twas to her:
Well, be it so, whether I win or lose,
The tale I'll tell, and tell it how I chuse.
“About this time, at the siege of Orleans, fell the Earl of Salisbury by a cannon shot, being the first English gentleman ever slain thereby.” Camden.
JOAN of ARC.
A Tragedye fulle of Merrie Conceites.
Some a conjuror misname her;
And swear she by the Dauphin had
A little—but why here defame her?
Enemies I dare assure ye;
And she's no subject well I wis,
For trial by an English Jury.
At men of France,—could kill and eat 'em;
Yet contrived, I can't tell how,
To let a French young woman beat 'em.
Had nor learning, name, nor riches;
Yet did wonders, to be sure,
As ladies will who wear the breeches.
She by the Dauphin's friends was taught
To play her pretty patriotic part;
Well, if she was,
She own'd, that's poz,
Uncommon skill, and most consummate art.
Yet nightly visited, she said,
By visions, and by angel sights;
Which told her where, if she'd a mind,
A rare and rusty sword to find,
With power to put the English folks to rights.
She sent to William De la Pole,
Or, by the guardian pow'rs of France,
She swore to make his people dance,
And bang his body like a sack.
But Joan would speak her mind you know;
And, I know too, a shepherd wench is,
(Whether she English girl or French is),
Not sheepish when conversing with a foe.
Something she must have said, which form derides,
For De la pole
Thought it so droll,
He laugh'd enough to split his Suffolk sides.
But when his armour she began to batter,
The chief declared 'twas no such laughing matter;
Nor knew by what ill-natured names to christen her,
When, spite of his broad sword, she took him pris'ner.
Talbot, and Hungerford, Rampstone, and Scales,
Fretted like hottest gentlemen of Wales
The French ascribed the power of a God
To sturdy Joan, while Englishmen less civil,
Declared such treatment was the very Devil.
And thro' her valour Charles, it seems,
Was crown'd the Sovereign of France at Rheims
When by her brilliant star forsook,
A knight of Burgundy o'ercame poor Joan,
Sent her in irons to be tried at Roan.
Where can I without shame relate it?
Wicked transaction! how I hate it!
Soldiers and nobles, gentlemen of note,
Prelates,—the story's sticking in my throat,
A mean trap laid,
To catch the maid
And, foul befal the chiefs that so could harm her!
To all their everlasting shames,
(I burst to call them fifty names,)
Condemn'd the gallant damsel to the flames.
And was this most unmanly action done
Merely for putting martial harness on?
No, 'twas mere spite, one sees it in a minute,
Because she had most soundly thrash'd 'em in it.
French authors say she never slept in camp without two of her brothers to guard her; nor in a town without some female, of exemplary character, to bear her company.
Suffolk was taken by Renaud, a French gentleman, whom he first knighted before he would surrender to him.
The Regent, in his letter to the King and Council, speaks of Joan as a Disciple and Lymme of the Fiende that used fals Enchauntments and Sorcerie, the which strocke and discomfiture not onlie lessed in grete Pertie the nombre of youre people there, bote as well withdrowe the courage of the reminant in mervellous wyse.” Rymer's Fædera.
After the coronation, she embraced the King's knees, and with tears extorted by pleasure and tenderness, congratulated him in this singular and marvellous event.” Hume.
Each day we gain'd a foe or lost a friend;
Each day our gallic fortune met reverse,
And bad news only came to herald worse.
King Henry some time after this got married,
A match which gave his subjects little pleasure,
For all his wishes, save the Queen, miscarried,
And folks grew discontented out of measure.
The people laid the good Duke Humphrey's death;
His nephew Beaufort 'twere as just to deem
An agent too,—his constant wrangling strife,
Embitter'd the deceased protector's life.
Beaufort not long survived, at it should seem
And left, sans sign of grace, this world's unequal dream.
Affairs in France proceed as ill as ever,
Normandy, Gascony, their interests sever;
While Somerset in France is losing ground,
At home dissentions and distrust abound.
The Duke of York that flame 'gins light,
Which, fed by Roses red and white,
Produced to hundreds, then unborn,
Many a sharp and burning thorn;
Suffolk is banished; on his way a friend
Of York's, turn'd pirate, as 'tis said,
Makes Suffolk shorter by the head.
When the Dauphin, after being crowned, was advised to demolish the Regent's decent monument of black marble, “Let him repose”, said the generous monarch, “in peace, and be thankful that he does repose; were he awake, he would make the stoutest among us tremble.”
Cardinal Beaufort had been a Bishop fifty years; he left an illegitimate daughter, and founded the Abbey of Saint Cross, at Winton; as Legate from Rome, and as an ambitious meddling Priest, he was universally dreaded. He survived his uncle, the good Duke, whom he had greatly persecuted, but a few days.
Soon after having been seized by the Queen's party on a charge of treason, he was found dead in his bed. His wife Eleanor had been ignominiously punished on a charge of sorcery, and was not permitted to enjoy her jointure after her husband's death. The Duke has the credit of having founded the Bodliean Library.
“Lord of Misrule,” comes famed Jack Cade;
And thus the essence of his doctrine ran,
And, thus inscribed, his standard graced the van:
“When Adam delv'd,
“And Eve span,
“Who was then
“A Gentleman?”
With Johnny decent dress or education
Were 'clep'd high treason 'gainst the nation;
And every mortal that could read or spell,
By axe or halter swang or fell.
For taking peoples nobs off, Jack took pride in:
Yet changed his tone,
Just as his own
Was going to be cropp'd by Mister Iden;
Was, by King Henry, dubb'd Sir Alexander.
“Now am I master of London.” said Cade, striking his staff upon London-stone. He had been a dependant on Sir Thomas Dacre, in Sussex, and lately returned from France, whither he had fled in consequence of having murdered a woman and her child. Rymer.
And we lose Talbot and the valiant Lisle:
Now York and Lancaster with fury glow,
And Roses, red and white, alternate blow.
York heads St. Alban's battle, and the King,
Wounded, defeated, and in rebel hands,
Begins, as Avon's swan doth sweetly sing,
To envy peasants on his humblest lands.
The Duke of York protector they create,
And on a thread depends King Henry's fate;
Next year the new protector is displaced,
And Henry, once more, with dominion graced:
Now mark a strange reverse, the Frenchmen land
At Sandwich, fifteen thousand from their band
In Devonshire and Cornwal too, to make
Reprisals on old England they begin,
And unprotected spoil they burn or take;
Thus have we war without, and war within.
York, at Bloreheath, in sanguinary fight,
Depress'd the red rose, to exalt the white;
At Ludlow battle Henry's fortune led,
To crush the white and elevate the red;
A fatal field to Harry and his reign.
When treacherous Ruthyn, most disloyal Grey,
Deserting, changed the fortune of the day,
The King again is prisoner, and the crown
Decreed to pass to York's descendants down;
But martial Margaret, on Wakefield's plains,
Her husband's honor manfully regains;
York, late triumphant, fierce defeat appals,
And crimsoned o'er, “the white rose leader falls.”
Edward his son his better fortune tries,
And fickle vict'ry from Henry flies;
The Queen again essays the doubtful field,
And now once more the white rose banners yield.
This second battle of St. Alban's fought,
Redeem'd the captive King, but still it brought
No true advantage:—London chose to name
Edward of York their Sovereign, he came:
The shadow only of poor Hal remain'd,
Who from this time in substance never reigned.
After events which Edward's life will tell,
By crooked Gloucester's sword King Henry fell.
Foil'd by his friends, and governed by his wife;
The last a foible you may often see
In other folks besides him, you, or me.
Eaton and Cambridge each a College owe
To Henry's bounty. Of no man the foe,
Unless it were himself, He deemed each woe
He suffered here, correction kindly sent
From Heaven, in lieu of future punishment,
A gracious earnest given to insure
Him bliss, where bliss can only long endure.
Queen Margaret founded Queen's College, Cambridge; Archbishop Chicheley, All Souls and Bernard's College, Oxon; and Wainfleet, Bishop of Winchester, founded Magdalen College there.
To a Ruffian who struck him in the face, while prisoner, he only said, “Forsooth you do wrong to strike your anointed King;” and when some ladies appeared at a masque with their necks apparelled too much like our modern fashion, he exclaimed with characteristic simplicity, “Fie, fie, for shame—in sooth you are to blame.”
| A Metrical History of England | |